Info for A Certain Slant of Light

The exceptional nature and musicality of Emily Dickinson’s poetry has attracted many composers. A Certain Slant of Light features musical settings of Dickinson poems by four outstanding American composers: Aaron Copland, Gordon Getty, Jake Heggie and Michael Tilson Thomas. The collection of songs featured on this album reveals the diversity of Dickinson’s oeuvre, as well as the rich 20th- and 21st-century tradition of American art song composition. These songs are interpreted by the renowned American soprano Lisa Delan, together with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille under the baton of Lawrence Foster.
Delan has been featured on varied PENTATONE releases, including three American song recitals. Reviewing Delan’s 2016 recording Out of the Shadows, critics praised her “musicianship and responsiveness to the text” (Gramophone), “scrupulous and passionate accounts” (New Music Connoisseur), “liquid emotion and straightforward braininess” (Blog Critics), and “clarity and rhetorical relevance” (The Rehearsal Studio). Opera News noted “It's gratifying to find a singer involved so intimately and actively with the music of her time” and Music Web International added “Lisa Delan is probably one of the most versatile singers now before the public”.
Lisa Delan, sopranoMarseille Philharmonic OrchestraLawrence Foster, conductor

Lisa Delan
American soprano Lisa Delan has won acclaim as an outstanding interpreter of a vast repertoire and is recognized for her versatility and breadth of accomplishment in opera, song, and recording.
She has performed on some of the world’s leading concert stages including Lincoln Center, the Auditiorio Nacional in Madrid, the Moscow Conservatory, and in a special appearance at Windsor Castle. Her festival appearances include the Bad Kissingen Festival in Germany, the Colmar Festival in France, the Rachmaninoff Festival in Novgorod, Russia, the Festival del Sole in Napa Valley, California, the Tuscan Sun Festival in Cortona, Italy, and the Domaine Forget Festival in Canada in collaboration with cellist Matt Haimovitz. In July 2012, Ms. Delan returned to the Festival del Sole in performances with flutist Maxim Rubstov and pianist Kristin Pankonin.
Ms. Delan won recognition from singing the title role in the world premiere of Gordon Getty’s Joan and the Bells in 1998, a role she has since reprised in France, Germany, the U.S., and Russia, and in the 2002 recording for PentaTone Classics. Critics have praised her depiction of Joan of Arc as “beautifully sung” (International Record Review), “refreshingly unpretentious” (Gramophone Magazine), and “a role she has made her own, with the kind of pure tone one expects of a saint-to-be and the passion one expects from a 19-year-old girl going to her death. Miss Delan is exceptional” (Nevada Events). The soprano reprised this role for the Russian National Orchestra’s Fourth Grand Festival in Moscow in September, 2012.
As a recital artist, her repertoire encompasses the Baroque to the contemporary, and she is privileged to collaborate with composers whose musical lives are still works in progress: Ms. Delan has performed and recorded the music of William Bolcom, John Corigliano, David Garner, Gordon Getty, Jake Heggie, Andrew Imbrie, and Luna Pearl Woolf, among others. In 2009, she performed Getty’s well-known song cycle The White Election, on poems by Emily Dickinson, in a recital presented by the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts with pianist Kristin Pankonin. In 2010, Cal Performances featured Ms. Delan in two concerts in Berkeley, California: The White Election with Mikhail Pletnev at the piano, and in concert with the Russian National Orchestra. Ms. Delan and Ms. Pankonin came together again to perform The White Election at the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse at Lincoln Center in April, 2012.
Ms. Delan was featured on three recordings released by PentaTone Classics in 2009 (with two additional recordings slated for release in 2013): And If the Song Be Worth a Smile, her debut solo recording of songs by American composers (with pianist Kristin Pankonin and guest artists Matt Haimovitz and Susanne Mentzer); The White Election, a new recording of Getty’s song cycle (with pianist Fritz Steinegger); and as a guest artist on Phenomenon, a recording of works by San Francisco-based composer David Garner. About these recordings, critics have noted, “The performance by Lisa Delan reveals her to be a singer with an unusually versatile voice, ranging from rich operatic tones to Broadway belt, with excellent diction and imaginative characterization. Delan has the ability to tell a story through song very effectively...” (International Record Review); “Lisa Delan has a lovely, bright soprano voice that she can color appropriately...” (Fanfare); and “Her singing is full of thoughtful detail and rings clear (yes, you can actually hear the words), plus her acting is dramatic enough to be direct but is never over the top” (Rochester Democrat and Chronicle). After reviewing Ms. Delan’s recent recordings, Sequenza 21 declared that “As a song interpreter she may well be unequaled.”